Interest groups provide a great opportunity for AEGEE members to discuss common interests in a structured way and in a perfect environment where new initiatives and projects can be developed. Maria de la Torre tells us something about the Gender Equality Interest Group, for which she is coordinator.

Gender equality has been on AEGEE’s agenda since August 2014, when Léa Charlet was appointed as Policy Officer to develop the topic in AEGEE. As a result of her work, an active community was built around discussions on this topic. Seeing that there is a great interest in Gender Equality in the Network, and after a meeting during EPM Leiden, some AEGEEans decided that the natural next step was to officially establish an interest group, approved by the CD on the 11th of May 2016. The members of the Gender Equality Interest Group believe that every person should have the right to make choices about who they want to be, no matter what their gender identity is. Furthermore, they believe it is important to recognise and discuss how gender stereotypes affect us all in our daily lives, sometimes in obvious and sometimes in subtle ways, that we may not even be aware of. At the moment, the priority of the interest group is to assess the AEGEE awareness on gender issues, so that its members can build on the current situation in the best possible way.

At the time of researching for this article, the interest group has thirty-eight members in their mailing list and 469 ‘likes’ on its Facebook group, and the amount of members and ‘likes’ keeps growing every day. The interest group has four moderators: Marije Arentze, María Ballesteros, Léa Charlet and Maria de la Torre. But a lot of people are extremely active and are helping keeping the debate active, especially since the Interest Group was officially established.

The members of the interest group believe that gender equality is a matter of common interest in AEGEE and that it is a big part of our civic education in general. After almost two years of activities, they can still see a lot of sexism in AEGEE, and they want to play their part, raise awareness and make a small change. It is not about mitigating differences, they do not aim at eliminating the diversity of gender expression. Instead, the members would like a future when people will not need to be put into boxes; when everybody will have the same rights and opportunities regardless of their gender, because this level of equality still varies from country to country. There are still very few women in positions of power and the amount of women who are employed part-time is three times higher than that of men. Women still have to deal with harassment on the street and sexism at their workplace on a daily basis, let alone rape and abuse.

The members of the interest group witness everyday how women’s bodies are used as a marketing strategy in ads that depict women as objects without agency. The interest group’s Facebook group is very active and it is increasingly filled with discussions about gender equality and with shared information and experiences concerning gender equality almost every day. The members of the interest group have recently started a Book Club, where they also included a list of academic literature as well as a movie about gender equality. Furthermore, they would like to encourage debates and critical thinking by establishing a collaboration with the Civic Education Working Group. Recently, they conducted a survey in AEGEE on the perception of gender equality. Soon they will have the analysis of the results and publish them. For the next term, they plan to do a deeper, more policy-oriented survey, for which they will also launch a newsletter summing up the highlights of their discussions, news related to the topic and the pertinent activities. Finally, they are working on workshop outlines and plan to have a handout for locals after the Summer that, together with a PR campaign, will help to increase the number of events with gender equality education and discussion in AEGEE.

If you are interested in the topic and want to work with us you can send me an email (maria.de.la.torre@aegee.org) or join our Facebook group.

Written by Matteo Lai, AEGEE-Cagliari.

In this article we are talking about the various languages spoken among AEGEE members.  We know that English is the most common language in the world, but also other languages find some space in our Network, therefore  we have asked Erifyli Evangelou, a member of the Language Interest Group, to tell us something about the situation of the languages inside our students’ association.

We know for sure that English is not the only foreign language spoken in AEGEE, even though it represents the one we use to communicate among us in ninety per cent of the cases. There are other languages such as Spanish, not only inside Spanish Antennas but also diffused in many Locals, where there are many students who study Spanish for example. We can also consider German an other language you can find in many European countries. However, we do not have any statistics yet. That is why the Language Interest Group reveals to us their plan to make a survey about languages in AEGEE. In this plan, the Interest Group will answer to the following questions: which are the most spoken ones, where do people learn the languages and what do they do to improve them.

We also know that not all nationalities are able to speak English in the same way. According to the opinion of most AEGEE members, Italians and Spanish show the worst spoken English. Some AEGEEans say that the best English is spoken by Dutch guys. Dutch is a bit similar to English, being an anglo-germanic language within the Germanic languages, meaning it shares a common ancestor with languages such as English, German, and the Scandinavian languages. That’s why it shares many common words with English. At the same time, we do not have to be limited to these stereotypes linked to the language families in which English belongs, and Italian and Spanish do not.  We will have to wait, then, for the survey of the LIG in order to discover the answers to our questions. The same question presents and discussed in many lunches or dinners among AEGEE members.

The goal of the Language Interest Group is to raise awareness within AEGEE about the value of multilingualism, encourage and help AEGEEans to learn more foreign languages and discuss issues related to language policies, minority languages and language diversity. The group has different ongoing projects, like the European Day of Languages or the Travel Dictionaries Project. Furthermore, it is cooperating with Language SUs, giving workshops at Agorae and EPM and it is present at the Fairs. Additionally, it also has temporary projects like the AEGEE Day video or preparing language quizzes and games. In fact, with the help of some active members and many Antennas, the LIG has collected multilingual greetings from all over the AEGEE network. Every AEGEE member can watch our video here.

About the next plans, Erifyli tells us that the LIG is planning to create a multilingual European music playlist, so that AEGEEans can listen to cool songs in every AEGEE language. Furthermore, they are going to publish soon their Travel Dictionaries in many languages and if you attend Agora Bergamo it could be that you see some members of the LIG recording many different people saying something in their language.

Erifyli Evangelou gives some tips for AEGEEans who want to improve their English. In particular, the LIG encourages them “To go to many events and once being there, don’t be only with people who speak your language. Talk a lot to people from other countries, do not get frustrated if you make mistakes and be patient with yourself!” Other options to improve a language are organising a language tandem or other language activities in your Antenna or get involved in a European project, because there the working language is for sure English. “The most important thing is to get out of your comfort zone and not be afraid of speaking English! Only those who try, can succeed!” adds Erifyli.

Written by Matteo Lai, AEGEE-Cagliari.

When the proposal about the working groups passed at Argora Asturias, several of them ceased to exist. One of them was the Culture Working Group. Some months later, two Italian members decided that it was about time to bring back the cultural side to the Network. We spoke with Sergio (AEGEE-Torino) who, together with Alessandro (AEGEE-Pisa), is already very active in recruiting new members and preparing a new platform to share culture. 

Sergio from AEGEE-Torino

The AEGEEan: Describe yourselves. 

Sergio: We are two enthusiastic AEGEE members (and two really good friends), both philosophy students with a strong interest in culture.

I am 24 years old and I am now doing a PhD in Bonn, where I just moved. I am member of AEGEE since September 2014. During this time I was Erasmus Responsible at first, and then President of AEGEE-Torino. I have a big passion for music and art and I really enjoy writing about that. What I like more about AEGEE, is the possibility of travelling, discovering new places and cultures and speaking many languages.

Alessandro is 23 years old, he lives in Tuscany and he just graduated. He is quite a new AEGEE member, but he already collaborates activelly with  AEGEE-Pisa. He is a literature lover and a writer, both in prose and poetry. His last work is a forthcoming postmodern novel called The City (La Città). He lived in Belgium for six months, where he did his Erasmus. He is addicted to anything that belongs to humanities and arts.
Why did you decided to establish the Culture Interest Group?

Because of my studies I recently moved to Bonn, where there is no AEGEE Local. For this reason I would like to keep being an active AEGEE member by working in an international interest group. Ever since I found out that the CWG was closing, I thought that AEGEE should not stay without a cultural interest group: European identity and europtimism are possible only existent on the basis of a solid shared culture.

Together with Alessandro, I would like to give my contribution to the cultural cause. We both have experience in managing cultural projects, both under the administrative and creative profile. We are interested in spreading culture in each form, from the very folkloristic one to the international, in order to create a good way to access a true European culture.  And we would be extremely keen on embarking on such a new adventure in the AEGEE community.
Can you give us a sneak peek of the work of the CIG in the upcoming months?

The first thing we would like to do with the Culture Interest Group is editing a multicultural and multilinguistic blog. This blog will be divided in many sections, such as Literature, Music, Visual Art, Cinema, Folklore etc. Each section will have a thematic supervisor and anyone can submit articles to be published. Moreover, we are thinking about organising other cultural activities such as debates, exhibitions, contests, group meetings and thematic events.

During the next week, we will plan the CIG’s next steps and organise our future activities, mainly through Skype meetings and social networks. Everyone who wants to join us is invited!
What is culture for you?

To us, culture is not only a matter of entertainment or a way to spend free time. We recognise culture as a primary need of our society and we believe that only culture can cement European identity. Moreover, spreading culture is what we would like to do in life. We are both philosophy students with a big passion for literature, music and art and we want to put our knowledge into practice in everyday life by making culture accessible and understandable to everybody who is interested.
Do you think that culture can bring us together, despite all the differences?

Of course! In my opinion, culture is always a matter of difference. In our society, the media, trends and global market want us to be all the same and cause a progressive cultural and linguistical flattening. However, globalisation (and Europeanisation too) should not mean that we have to adopt the same costumes, but rather that we can share our diversity without being afraid of cultural differences.
Where can AEGEEans find you?
We will share all the news about the CIG on our facebook page.

Furthermore, in a few days, our cultural blog Momus will be online. We will share the link to the website as soon as possible. The best way to contact us is to write a message to our Facebook page. We will answer within a few hours. If you do not have Facebook or if you want to communicate in an alternative way, it is possible to write to our unofficial email address aegeecig@gmail.com.

Alessandro from AEGEE-Pisa

Who should be joining?

Everyone who is interested in culture and who is keen on discussing his or her cultural interest with other people. If you like reading, writing, listening to music, going to cinema, theatre or exhibitions, if you like the AEGEE atmosphere and you would like to deepen your international engagement, or even if you are just curious, you should definitively join us!

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Verona